WE’RE NO. 1! ... FOR SOME MARKETS

Mildly surprising is the region’s distaste for McDonald’s, he said, but it fits with the healthy lifestyle common here, and is consistent with the fact that this is the top market for Sprouts, which specializes in natural and organic foods for the health-conscious shopper.

Overall, he said, the results look like an accurate reflection of consumer behavior here. “I don’t think anything jumps out at me and I say ‘boy, this is really strange.’ ”

Survey results like these can be useful for companies deciding how to allocate their marketing budgets across different geographic markets, Belch said. It can also help merchandisers determine what products or services to make available in certain areas.

Still, he warned that some market shares — like Jaguar’s, for example, which is 1 percent of the auto market in San Diego and 0 percent in most other cities — are small, making their numbers small and leading to “somewhat tenuous” survey results.